Sheet printing and crimping



May'28 1946. A, 1 HE 2,400,991

SHEET PRINTING AND CRIMPING v Filed Sept. 25, 1942 3 Sheets-Sheet l ,2INVENTOR.

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A. L. HESS SHEET PRINTING AND CRIMPING Filed Sept. 25. 1942 3Sheets-Sheet 2 I w m "A i Q INVENTOR \Hrih ur L Hess.

y 1946. A. L. HESS 2,400,991

SHEET PRINTING AND GRIMPING- Filed sept. 25, 1942 s Sheets-Sheet sINVENTOR. kfifz hur L- 0 76368,

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composed of two or more sheets.

, and possibly one or crimping dies that Patented May 1946 Arthur L.

of West Virginia Hess, Cincinnati, Ohio, assignor to Ditto,Incorporated, Chicago,

Ill., a corporation Application September 25, 1942 Serial No. 459,726

2 Claims. (Cl. 270-52) The present invention relates to crimping andprinting sheets and has for its principal purpose the provision of amethod whereby a plurality of sheets may be handled together from astack and thereafter fastened together into a novel unit In the makingof various records it is oftentimes essential'to have not only a singlesheet but a carbon sheet more additional sheets attached thereto forrecord purposes. As an example of the type of sheet assembly to which Irefer in the making of copies by the wet process duplicating method itis now common practice to use so-called "master sets." A master setcomprises a clear sheet which may have certain "matter printed thereon,a hectograph carbon sheet, and in many instance The matter of assemblingthe the master sheet presents a are finally fastened together into asingle unit. In my co-pending application, Serial No. 459,725. filedSeptember 25, 1942, I have described and claimed an apparatus wherebytwo or more sheets may be printed upon and fastened together by crimpingas a part of the printing operation. The present invention isparticularly advantageous in connection with that apparatus.

a backing sheet. carbon sheet with problem until they A preferred formof in connection with a printing machine of the general type referred toin the foregoing application wherein the printing bed and the impressioncylinder are provided with cooperatin that are gripped by the cylindergrippers so that the sheets thereafter may be handled as a single unit.loose sheets may be Of the stacked upon the stack table press and arepicked up in units of two or more sheets by the suction device of thepress and transferred as units to the cylinder without previouslysecuring the sheets to each other.

The details, objects and advantages of the invention will appear morefully as the description proceeds, reference being had to the acconipanying drawings wherein a preferred form of the inventionisshown.

In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is alongitudinal sectional view through a printing press showingthe printing bed, the impression cylinder and the suction feedingdevice;

Fig. 2 is an enlarged sectional view taken through the suction feedingdevice showing it in the act of lifting a paper unit, this view beingtaken on the line 2-2 of Fig. 3

the invention is disclosed are adapted to crimp sheets,

In accordance with the present invention Fig.3 is a sectional view takenon the line 3-3 ofFig. 1;

Fig. 4 is a perspective view of a sheet assembly prior to its beingoperated upon by the printing press;

Fig. 5 shows the printed upon by the press;

Fig. 6 is a perspective assembly as printedupon; and

Fig. 'l is a sectional view taken on the line 1-! Fig. 6 showing thenature of the crimping. Referring now in detail to the drawings I haveshown therein a general embodiment of a Miehle cylinder press of thetype wherein the bed reciprocates vertically. In Fig. 1 of the drawingsthe numeral I0 designates the bed of the press in which the chase II ismounted. An impression cylinderis shown at H. Thisimpression cylindercarries a-gripper bar I 3 upon which a series of gripper pins I 4 arearranged to grip and hold sheets on the impression cylinder while theyare' being pressed against a printing plate mounted on the chase II. Inaccordance with my application hereinbefore mentioned the gripper bar I!and the chase H are provided with cooperating crimping dies I5 and It,the purpose of which is to crimp together two or more sheets that areheld by the gripper pins H as the sheets are passed between theimpression cylinder and the printing plate.

The crimping is of the nature shown in Figs. 6 and 7 of the drawings.That is, the dies are serrated so as to deform the sheets at a pluralityof sections indicated at IT in Fig. 6 into the form shown in Fig. 7where the top sheet l8 and the bottom sheet l9 are bent into corrugatedform by the dies and wedged together by the force of compression so asto bind the two sheets together. As pointed out in the priorapplication, this crimping action is done in the same cycle of the pressas the printing. It will be noted also that' interferes with theadherance of the sheets to each other, and a much better bond can beobtained by leaving an area of the carbon sheet. where the crimping isto take place, free of car bon. j

The printing press also embodies a feed table c ped paper as it is beingview of the completed 22 to which the sheets ar fed from a stack table23 by a suitable suction feeder indicated generally at 24. The mechanismis such that as sheets are fed by the suction device 24 to the table 22the stack tabl- 23 rises. This mechanism however is of no moment to thepresent invention and is common in presses of this type. The suctiondevice will pick up a plain sheet and transfer it to the table 22 intimed relation to the operation of the cylinder l2 and the bed It). Myinvention is directed to accomplishing the transfer of more than-onesheet at a time by the suction device without the necessity of changingthe standard suction device. 4 Referring now to Figs. 1 to 4, inclusive,of the drawings, it will be noted that the suction device comprises aswinging arm 26 and a frame 26 carried by the arm upon which there are aplurality of suction heads 21 and 28. These uction-heads are connectedby two tubes 29 and 30 to a pipe 3| in the frame 26 and this pipe isconnected by a tube 32 to a suitable suction pump not shown. Theconstruction of the suction heads 21 and 28, as illustrated in Fig. 3,is such that a rim 33 surrounds a suction opening 36 so that when thesuction head is let down upon'a sheet of paper l8 air may be evacuatedin the area when the rim 33 is on top of the sheet, thus causing thesheet to adhere to the suction head and be carried with it when thesuction head is lifted. In accordance with my invention I make itpossible to lift a plurality of sheets, that is, two or more sheets, bymeans of the suction heads 21 and 28 and by perforating all but one ofthe series of sheets that are to be handled together with smallperforation such as are indicated at 35 and36 on the sheet I 8; Thesheets are arranged in groups on the stacking table with unperforatedsheets l9 directly beneath one or V more of the sheets IB that areperforated. Now

when the suction head 21 and 28 are lowered upon the stack of sheets andthe air is exhausted from the area within the rims 33, the perforatedsheet or sheets permit the vacuum to be applied to the non-perforatedsheet is so that when the suction heads are lifted the non-perforatedsheet I9 and all the sheets superposed thereon will be lifted as a unitand carried by a suction device to the table 22. There the severalsheets are gripped by the gripper fingers It and held on the impressioncylinder 12 in the same manner as a single sheet would be held. As thecylinder and printing plate are brought together for the printingoperation the 'sheets held by the gripper fingers are crimped togetherby the crimping dies l and I8 at the beginning accuser ished productisan assembly of sheets such as is shown in Figs. 6 and '1. The sheetsare held together by the crimping and may be used as a single unit untilsuch time a .it is desired to separate them. It is obvious of coursethat this crimping permits ready separation without damage to the sheetsother than the slight disfigurement caused by the crimping.

The present invention is not limited in its scope to the printing of thesheets since it is obvious that by leaving out the printing plate aplurality of, sheets maybe picked up together by the suction heads andcrimped together by the crimping dies for use thereafter as a set ofsheets such as the master set" hereinbefore referred to. The crlmpedtogether set of sheets may be used in many ways.' The fastening of thesheets together does not interfere with their very use in a typewriteror a printing press. Moreover the sheets, when separated, may be usedsingly for any purpose desired The small perforations and the smallcrimped areas occupy a limited amount of the sheet surface close thatthere is practically no loss surface. The method of to one edge so inthe available sheet handling the sheets makes it possible to use thestandard sheet transfer equipment of the press without any changeswhatsoever.

of the printing operation. The resulting finperforations will reach bothsheets of a While there have been shown and described certainembodiments of the invention, it is to be understood that it is capableof many modifications. Changes, therefore, may be made without departingfrom the scope of the invention as described in the appended claims, inwhich it is the intention to claim all novelty inherent in the inventionas broadly as possible, in view of the prior art.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new and desire tosecure by Letters Patent is:

1. A method of providing assemblies of a plurality of sheets capable ofbeing handled as a single unit, which comprises perforating all but oneof the assembly of sheets with at least one perforation, stacking thesheets with the unperforated sheets beneath the perforated sheets of theunit, transferring the sheets by applying a suction over theperforations. u v

2. A stack of sheetscom'prising groups 'arranged one ontop of the other,each grou including a bottom sheet which is unperforated and at leastone top sheet having therein spaced perforations whereby a suctionapplied about the unit and enable the sheets of a group to betransferredtogether.

ARTHUR L. HESS.

